"The decision is made, then," Gossel said to me. "You are the better friend because you had hoped to spare him from the Colony." He turned to Weevil. "Raise your hand, grub, palm out."
I had hoped our game wouldn't get this far, but it had. I whispered, "I did want to spare him." Now tears formed in my eyes. "I am the worse friend. I said I can prove it, and I will."
I reached into the pocket of my dress and pulled out the few wet wheat kernels that were in the bottom, the ones I'd discovered when Weevil had given me the dried meat strips.
Weevil shook his head. "It's just wheat. What is that supposed to prove?"
"Your mother makes poor man's bread for your family every day," I said. "Where does she get the wheat?"
"We buy it."
"Who buys it? From where?"
Weevil tilted his head, confused. "We have money. I work hard every day, and I catch fish in the river whenever I can. My mother sews for the River People, and sends my sisters to the market for salt and eggs and--"
"Not wheat," I said. "They never buy wheat. It's too expensive in the river country."
Weevil's eyes darted away, then came back to me. "Your family has nothing either."
"I have no brothers and sisters. We don't need as much."
He shifted his balance on the ground, clearly uncomfortable. "We had an agreement, Ani. Whatever we found as we fished or hunted, we would keep for our own families. That kept everything fair and equal."
"It was never fair and equal." The first tear fell on my cheek. "Never."
"You took home your fish, just as I took home mine." Then his eyes locked on the wheat again. It was something, obviously, that we never fished for, never hunted for, something we never even gathered. Wheat could not grow in the river country. It only grew in the lowlands. "Where did you get that?"
"I told you that I had to be home with my family each evening," I said. "That wasn't true. Each evening I went into the town and sang. With the coins I earned, I bought wheat for both of our families. I left a jar of it outside your mother's window each night. She never knew it was me."
Weevil's expression had stiffened. "How long has this been going on?"
"Since a few weeks after your father was taken away on that ship."
His hands had formed into fists now, and his face had reddened. "You were giving us food, when you needed it too? We were your charity, your duty to the needy family?"
"You were my friend. You are my friend. Your family needed this wheat!"
He yelled, "How dare you? The day my father left, it became my duty to take care of my family. Not yours!"
I'd never seen him so angry, and he'd never been angry at all with me. But I wasn't angry when I yelled back at him, only frightened. "You were doing your best, but it wasn't enough!"
"Who made you the judge of what's enough for my family?" he asked.
"Your mother was becoming too thin," I said. "Did you notice that she wasn't eating at suppertime? There wasn't enough food, not until I brought the wheat."
"And when you were at my home and we offered you the bread from our table, did you secretly gloat over the fact that you were the one who had really given it to us?"
"Never!" I said. "Wouldn't you have done the same for me, if my family had needed help?"
"I would've respected our agreement, or if I was giving you food, then I'd have been honest about helping you."
"If I had said anything, you never would've accepted it. You won't accept help from our people because your family can't give back. I know you were doing your best, but your best could not keep them alive. You needed my help, even if you didn't want it."
"Thank you, then," Weevil said stiffly. "Thank you for taking care of my family. Obviously, I couldn't."
"And so you are the better friend," Gossel said to me. "You are saving him and his family."
Weevil remained silent and only continued staring at me, utterly wounded. This was exactly how I knew he'd react.